NIV Bible

[HarryT]

Don't you think that removing it from the site would be a little drastic. How many people really care whether a word is spelled "LORD" or "Lord", do you think?

[charleski]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Don't you think that removing it from the site would be a little drastic. How many people really care whether a word is spelled "LORD" or "Lord", do you think?

Wars have been fought over less.

[bakura82]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Don't you think that removing it from the site would be a little drastic. How many people really care whether a word is spelled "LORD" or "Lord", do you think?

Actually, it's "LORD" versus "lord." If it said, "Lord," it would still refer to God at least. In this case, it shouldn't at all.

Honestly, if one verse is tarnished, one can assume that other versus may be messed up as well. As I said, many people have lived their lives based off this book for thousands of years.

Originally Posted by charleski

Wars have been fought over less.

I hope not.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bakura82

Honestly, if one verse is tarnished, one can assume that other versus may be messed up as well. As I said, many people have lived their lives based off this book for thousands of years.

It's probably something no more serious than missing a small-caps font out of the ePub file. Dismissing the whole thing just because of the capitalisation of a word just seems a little drastic to me. If someone is that fussed about truly accurate text, aren't they going to be reading the original, anyway, rather than a translation? After all, any translation is losing a heck of a lot more than (no disrespect intended) something as minor as this. I know that when I read the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, I'm amazed by the "liberties" that many translations take with what it really says!

[kwjones]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's probably something no more serious than missing a small-caps font out of the ePub file. Dismissing the whole thing just because of the capitalisation of a word just seems a little drastic to me. If someone is that fussed about truly accurate text, aren't they going to be reading the original, anyway, rather than a translation? After all, any translation is losing a heck of a lot more than (no disrespect intended) something as minor as this. I know that when I read the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, I'm amazed by the "liberties" that many translations take with what it really says!

It's NIV...not quite a "thought for thought" paraphrase, but a midle of the road(dymanic equivalence) translation. It's designed to be easily read and understood. Anyone interested in serious word study is going to be using a "word for word" translation like ESV, NASB, etc.

[bakura82]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's probably something no more serious than missing a small-caps font out of the ePub file. Dismissing the whole thing just because of the capitalisation of a word just seems a little drastic to me. If someone is that fussed about truly accurate text, aren't they going to be reading the original, anyway, rather than a translation? After all, any translation is losing a heck of a lot more than (no disrespect intended) something as minor as this. I know that when I read the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, I'm amazed by the "liberties" that many translations take with what it really says!

Thanks for you opinion. Risking sounding like a broken record though, there are people who genuinly care about the accuracy of translations especially since there are laymen that will never learn Koine, Aramaic, or Hebrew to any degree. This is much more complicated than you make it out to be especially since no "original" texts have been found yet. I personally spend a lot of time in the manuscripts available, but most people don't. However, for casual reading, even people like me generally don't refer to the manuscripts. There is always a high degree of trust put into the work of the scholars that complied such modern translations. Some people feel that differentiating between Lord (Adonai/God), LORD(Yahweh/his name), and lord (a person in authority/not God) is important and I am one of them.

I would love to discuss the textual criticism process that takes place for modern translations, but I don't think this is the thread for that. As drastic as it may sound, taking down the book or at least warning potential buyers that the book is flawed is actually something most followers of the Bible would appreciate.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's probably something no more serious than missing a small-caps font out of the ePub file. Dismissing the whole thing just because of the capitalisation of a word just seems a little drastic to me. If someone is that fussed about truly accurate text, aren't they going to be reading the original, anyway, rather than a translation? After all, any translation is losing a heck of a lot more than (no disrespect intended) something as minor as this. I know that when I read the New Testament in its original Koine Greek, I'm amazed by the "liberties" that many translations take with what it really says!

Being a bit lax in formatting with Dan Brown is one thing. It's generally not going to sit well with a whole lot of people when errors appear in a spiritually authoritative religious text such as the Bible or the Koran. Zondervan should have known better and should have gone through this text with the same fine-toothed comb they use for their print version of the Bible instead of just slapping this together and rushing it to market. It may not sound very important to you, but it is going to be vastly important to a lot of people. Especially when you mess around with the holy name of God in the text, which these caps and small caps are traditionally the only way of differentiating in English translations, this is going to be seen as a pretty egregious error, not something that should have been missed. It's going to appear to many as bordering on blasphemous. Jewish priests copying the text of these verses over hundreds of years went through elaborate cleansing rituals before writing this name YHWH and had rules such as even if a king were to enter the room and address the priest, the priest could not acknowledge the king's presence until he had finished writing the divine name. In contrast, Zondervan rushed this version out to market as though they didn't even care enough to take the time to ensure there was an appropriate and correct differentiation between the English small caps representation of God's name and the merely common word Lord. Lots of egg on Zondervan's face for this error, and rightly so.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kwjones

It's NIV...not quite a "thought for thought" paraphrase, but a midle of the road(dymanic equivalence) translation. It's designed to be easily read and understood. Anyone interested in serious word study is going to be using a "word for word" translation like ESV, NASB, etc.

Precisely. That's my point. Given the fact that the NIV is NOT intended to be a literal translation of the Hebrew/Greek, is an error of this type really going to upset people? As you rightly say, people who care about textual precision are probably not going to be reading the NIV!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bakura82

I would love to discuss the textual criticism process that takes place for modern translations, but I don't think this is the thread for that. As drastic as it may sound, taking down the book or at least warning potential buyers that the book is flawed is actually something most followers of the Bible would appreciate.

I agree with you that it would be appropriate to point out the flaw, so that those people who may be bothered by such things can buy a different edition.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bakura82

Actually, it's "LORD" versus "lord." If it said, "Lord," it would still refer to God at least. In this case, it shouldn't at all.

Have you looked at the ePub source to see if there is a style applied which might indicate a CSS problem or a missing font?

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Have you looked at the ePub source to see if there is a style applied which might indicate a CSS problem or a missing font?

this is a copyrighted and DRM protected book.

Dale

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

this is a copyrighted and DRM protected book.

Dale

Yes, I'm well aware of that, Dale. This is, however, a forum for discussing the "inards" of ePub files, and it would be instructive to know whether the issue is caused by a problem with the actual text of the book (which may indicate a significant problem for the publisher) or whether it's simply a display issue resulting from the production of the ePub file (eg a style problem) which could be trivially fixed.

[DaleDe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Yes, I'm well aware of that, Dale. This is, however, a forum for discussing the "inards" of ePub files, and it would be instructive to know whether the issue is caused by a problem with the actual text of the book (which may indicate a significant problem for the publisher) or whether it's simply a display issue resulting from the production of the ePub file (eg a style problem) which could be trivially fixed.

Yes, it is but I would not suggest that this is an instance of fair use to break the DRM just so we can discuss it. The publisher has already acknowledged that the problem exists and will hopefully correct it soon. I originally thought it might be a CSS or font problem but when I raised the question people indicated it was also on regular usage of the term lord with referring to regular persons, not diety, and would thus rule out the CSS/font as being the problem.

[cmdahler]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Precisely. That's my point. Given the fact that the NIV is NOT intended to be a literal translation of the Hebrew/Greek, is an error of this type really going to upset people? As you rightly say, people who care about textual precision are probably not going to be reading the NIV!

Actually, the NIV is intended to be a translation, not a paraphrase. Obvioulsy, the translators placed emphasis on easy readability in modern English, and that does differentiate the NIV from more "literal" translations that place no emphasis on readability. Further, as you are obviously well aware, it is quite impossible to translate any language into another "word for word." Consequently, the differences between the "literal" translations and other translations such as the NIV entirely come down to word and phrasing choices of the individual translators. One version is not any better or more "literal" than another.

Anyway, as a translation versus a paraphrase, the NIV is billed as an authoritative reference point for anyone studying the Bible in English who lacks the ability to read Hebrew or Greek or Aramaic. As such, the publishers better get their details right.

Harry, you're flying off on a tangent and missing the entire point behind why people would get upset over this formatting issue. This is simply not the same as finding a punctuation error in The Count of Monte Cristo. This is the Bible, and even if it doesn't mean much to you, it is vastly important to many others on a scale which you obviously aren't comprehending very well. Zondervan missing something like this in their epub shows a disregard for basic RESPECT: respect for their readers and a respect toward God whom they say they are trying to serve in the publication of this text. I'm sure you didn't understand the ire of the Muslim community in Finland over those cartoons, either, but the expectation and demand by deeply religious people toward God is real and not something to be taken lightly. Throwing this epub text out there without taking the time to proofread it and catch such basic errors is incredibly disrespectful toward both God and the readers of the text. Zondervan absolutely should remove this text from sale until these errors are fixed, and in fact should send an apology to the readers who bought this text to begin with. I've never been very impressed with Zondervan as a corporation, so I doubt they'll do that.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by cmdahler

Harry, you're flying off on a tangent and missing the entire point behind why people would get upset over this formatting issue. This is simply not the same as finding a punctuation error in The Count of Monte Cristo. This is the Bible, and even if it doesn't mean much to you, it is vastly important to many others on a scale which you obviously aren't comprehending very well. Zondervan missing something like this in their epub shows a disregard for basic RESPECT: respect for their readers and a respect toward God whom they say they are trying to serve in the publication of this text. I'm sure you didn't understand the ire of the Muslim community in Finland over those cartoons, either, but the expectation and demand by deeply religious people toward God is real and not something to be taken lightly. Throwing this epub text out there without taking the time to proofread it and catch such basic errors is incredibly disrespectful toward both God and the readers of the text. Zondervan absolutely should remove this text from sale until these errors are fixed, and in fact should send an apology to the readers who bought this text to begin with. I've never been very impressed with Zondervan as a corporation, so I doubt they'll do that.

Nope. I understand exactly what you're saying, but this is the peril of relying upon a translation for religious study. That's precisely why the Koran can be studied in translation as a text, but for religious use, only the classical Arabic version is permitted to be used. Nobody would dream of using a translated Koran for religious devotion for the very reason you cite - it would be disrespectful to God.